Tolkien – Yearning for Wonderland

"He knew the dark under the stars when it was fearless…"

Back when I was playing Lord of the Rings Online, I was wholly enchanted by the way that the game designers had managed to turn my beloved Middle Earth into a playable experience. They managed to incorporate so many tiny details from the books and the movies, creating a whole new reality. As a LOTR geek, I could pop through the round doors in the hobbit holes in Bag End. I could amble along old pathways with Strider. It was like World of Warcraft for book nerds.

In fact, I loved it so much, I had to stop playing because it was taking up way too much of my time. Before I left, though, I stumbled upon one of the most charming surprises I have ever encountered in a game.

I was playing Ilbe, the Hobbit Minstrel (don’t laugh), and was getting thoroughly thrashed with a small group of players in the Barrow Downs. In fact, I got killed almost immediately. Previously, I had been resurrected in one of the resurrection points near one of the towns. Not this time.

I was resurrected in the Old Forest near Breeland. Instead of verdant rolling fields and friendly, apple-cheeked hobbits, I saw this:

Giant spiders, creeping undergrowth, and hostile trees surrounded me. Panicked, I hacked and slashed my way through, running like crazy from the most dangerous monsters until I realized I was actually lost. I was running in circles and couldn’t get back to my group. I was in danger of being picked off again, my life force was dwindling, and all of a sudden in the distance I saw a light…

I slowly walked up to the door of the cozy cottage. Once inside, I wandered around like a child, exploring. I thought it was possible that I had actually been killed in the Old Forest and this was just Hobbit Heaven.

And then I realized…this was Tom Bombadil’s House! The literary thrill from that realization was like a shock. I experienced true bliss, also known as nerd-vana.

Sometimes this also happens in real life. We are wandering lost in a dark, scary place and, just when we think all hope is lost, we see a light in the distance. There is a refuge just behind that door; all we have to do is open it.

Picturing Mr. Darcy

Article first published as Picturing Mr. Darcy on Blogcritics.

Books and films have an uneasy alliance. If you truly love a book, you may passionately want to see it brought to life in a film…or you may not. In fact, some of the most vehement reaction to a book adaptation comes from some of the book’s biggest fans.

When you are first reading a book, you picture the characters, visualize the scenes as they unfold. For me, it is like watching a movie in my head. My actors do as they are told, as they turn the page. In fact, there have been a few times where I remember a “scene” in a movie, when in fact it was only in my head from reading the book.

Though the BBC’s Pride and Prejudice (1995) is as beloved as Jane Austen’s classic (#13 in Amazon’s top bestsellers), I defy anyone to watch it and then reread the book and not see this:

Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy

Arguably, seeing Colin Firth in your head for long stretches of time is not a bad thing. However, I can’t even remember what my original Mr. Darcy looked like. I’m fairly certain he had dark hair and flashing eyes and a haughty demeanor, as Darcys are wont to have. Other than that, I can only ever see Colin Firth.

It is a tribute to Firth’s acting skills that he has replaced the actor in my head; he was voted the Best Darcy by the Jane Austen Centre in Bath, England. But what of my long, lost Darcy?

Once a book’s character is codified into the face of an actor, there’s few ways to reset it: Vivian Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara, Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn, Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter are actors who permanenty define their character hereafter.

We are a deeply visual culture, so we delight in the ease and immersive experience of watching a movie. No one denigrates the joys of a classic, well-done film. But reading a book requires us to conjure faces and feelings in our own imagination, subject to no person except ourselves.

I have resisted watching the new Jane Eyre thus far, to avoid replacing the Mr. Rochester in my head with this:

As for you, which characters are now inseparable from the actors that have made them famous? Does this please or dismay you?

Word of the Day – Mellifluous

mel·lif·lu·ous

[muh–lif-loo-uhs]

–adjective

1. sweetly or smoothly flowing; sweet-sounding: a mellifluous voice; mellifluous tones.

2. flowing with honey; sweetened with or as if with honey.

This is one of those deliciously onomatopoeiatic words. Sweetened with honey indeed, let it roll across your tongue: mel-lif-lu-ous.

When I have used this word in conversation, it’s generally a waste of time and complete communication breakdown. But I love this word. Bring it back into the vernacular!

Word origin – mellifluous

early 15c., from L.L. mellifluus “flowing with (or as if with) honey,” from L. mel (gen. mellis ) “honey” + -fluus “flowing,” from fluere “to flow” (see fluent).

Wisdom from Sir Ian McKellen, in wholly mellifluous tones: